Constructing consumers. Efforts to make governmentality through energy policy

The paper focuses on the way household consumers have been perceived and constructed by Norwegian policy-makers through a period of 30 years. It shows how Norwegian energy policy makers have engaged in the making of ambiguous, vague and shifting constructions of consumers and their anticipated market behavior. We have identified three main shifts in the constructions, each related to a particular time period. The first came about in the wake of the international oil crisis of 1973, when a combined focus on energy conservation and economic efficiency of energy use were introduced as a goal in Norwegian energy policy. This construction was based on a belief in economically rational behavior, but rendered unclear by observations of deficits related to knowledge and morals. The second shift occurred at the end of the 1980s, with the introduction of the proposal of a new Energy Act with the aim of deregulating the electricity trade. The result was a controversy and construction of two versions of the consumer – as economically rational or as in need of political care. The third change came with the crisis in the supply of electricity that occurred during the winter of 2002/2003. This meant a shift towards a focus on investment in technology rather than the act of consuming. We suggest that the ineffectiveness of energy efficiency measures to some extent has been due to these constructions. On this basis, we propose the need for policy-makers to be more reflexive about the performance of their constructions, maybe also engage more actively with other social science research than economics to find knowledge about consumers.